Letters To Invisible Men
by Servant of Fire
Summary: AU. Sherlock returns from his Hiatus to find that the Press has not forgiven him. When columns arise in the papers created for the purpose of abusing his character, along with photos, videos, web forums,harassment from reporters, and finally zealous attackers, only John can preserve what remains of Sherlock as a human. DISCONTINUED
1. Chapter 1 Invisible

**Letters For Invisible Men~**

** To the only color in a world of shadeless gray~**

"Dear Sherlock,

I am writing this...because I think I could say it better with a pen and paper.

Are you ok?

You know you still look sad when you think that he can't see you...But...well...he can always see you...

I think you're scaring him. Maybe more than you could think.

Please, just talk to him? Let him help. He wants to help...

_Molly."

* * *

><p>That might be a letter that is never read.<p>

Sherlock's letters are what has made him so unwell.

There is a great medicine or a great poison in words. Sherlock has tasted only the poison of them as of late.

When London learned he was alive, they didn't welcome him so warmly, after all. Never mind that Moriarty had been at last condemned, the name of Sherlock Holmes was still mud.

Then John made the mistake of buying him a newspaper.

And whilst looking for write ups on crimes for him to solve...he found instead a Dear Abbey column, that wasn't written to Abbey at all.

It was written to one Sherlock Holmes. And it was titled, "Tell the Detective..."

"Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Below is a column to share your thoughts to the recently returned fraudulent master sleuth. Any thoughts for him? Leave your comments below:"

And below that,

"from Dexter Moore:

"I wish you had been aborted."

Below that;

from Lindsey Fields:

"So the Devil gave you back then?"

Below that:

from Edmund Greer:

"Go back to hell, Freak!"

And on and on it went.

And Sherlock read it all. All 3 pages of it.

Then he burned the paper.

And stood in the room as cold as stone. All in grey. Looking out on a grey London world.

Until a spark of bold red jumper and tousled golden hair came storming upstairs.

After the initial anger at the trick ,and the shock of the miracle had worn off, John was nothing but elated to have his brotherly flatmate home again.

"UTTERLY boring day, mate! Any luck with the papers? Not so much as a stolen shoe, or a missing kitten on the telly. Lestrade said he's going to check all his files. Said he's "electric" (how he put it, don't know what that means) about having you on the cases again...Mycroft cleared up all the legal bits,eased all his doubts, and all the other trouble. So we're all set to resume our lives...and..."

John stopped talking and stared.

It was frightening the way Sherlock was looking out the window, panting like a tiger in a glass cage, recently pulled from the wild, and being bombarded by a bunch of screaming, rock throwing pesky school boys.

"Sherlock?"

He walks closer. Stands beside him, looks up at him.

His eyes are filled with a strange twilight.

"My life...resume?..Don't think so...Doesn't matter..."he muttered.

Then he turned away, as if John wasn't even there.

John stood there, like he had been slapped violently across both sides of his face.

"What the?" he asked himself...and then he saw it.

In his haste to dispose of the indicting newspaper, Sherlock had dropped one page of the column.

John picked it up and read it. It was the last page, by far the worse.

"from an Anonymous subscriber:

(stream of edited words) "And I said all of that to say, that Sherlock Holmes you! (edited name)...if I catch you in the street, after what you DID, I'll kill you."

John dropped the paper, and clamped a hand over his trembling lips.

"Came home...after all that...disbanding Networks...being tortured and hunted,and doing a lot of hunting yourself...to keep all us lot here at home safe..and what thanks?..."

He shakes his head, wads the paper in a clenched fist, and hurls it in the fire.

"Sherlock!" he cries out to his friend, running after him, towards his bedroom.

He's not in it.

The window is open, and his laid out clothes, and coat and gloves and shoes are gone.

So dressed for work and climbed out the window?

John races to the street, to find him, taking a detour behind the rubbish bins out back.

Where was he going? Slipping off like that...a ghost of the former man...almost...

"Invisible..."John whispers, and shakes his head, following him from a distance.


	2. Chapter 2 De Anima Noctis

** Chapter 2: "De Anima Noctis": ( or "He Bleeds")**

The London rain begins to fall in such heavy sheets, that the world is stripped of color. Suddenly John feels as though he walks through the scenes of an old black and white silent movie. Even the sky has a strange amber hue, like undeveloped film.

John's stomach twists in dread, following Sherlock, wondering where he's going. Where he always goes when he actually feels emotions. John doesn't know about this; it's unlikely that he would have ever told him such a thing.

Sherlock has emotion. Few people are privy to it. Most think of him as a crime solving robot. But human he is, and feel he does. Just not like other people.

Grown men get angry when they are challenged by cutting words, go out for a drive to clear their head. Women would cry and call their friends. Boys would break things, get into trouble, cry when they think no one is watching. Girls curl up under blankets,hiding from the world, or hold tight to stuffed animals, and cry long sobs into pillows.

Sherlock Holmes disappears down winding London alleys, John scrambling like a crab on stoney shorelines to keep up with him.

Suddenly he's taking a very complicate path around the outside of, and climbing up the walls of the Tower Bridge, it being almost night fall now. John climbs after him, from a distance, wondering how he has found such a place to vent.

John fears drugs, or drink, or cigarette, or something corrosive to his mind, and damaging to his body.

What he does not expect is him to ignite the beam of an electric torch. Turn it on its hinder end, so that it illuminates a corner that has been marked as his own ,stained with marker writing ,notes for some of his cases, then smeared away, painted over again in other places.

Sherlock pulls out a piece of white chalk, and sets it on a place where the natural curvature of the bones of London bridge makes a shelf.

And then from a fold of his coat he produces his violin.

He stares at the dimly lit wall for a long time like a teacher about to prepare a lecture, thinking what he should put on it.

And then with a flourish he writes, in Latin.

"De Anima Noctis"

And then beside it ,in English,

"Night of My Soul"

And then he pulls his bow from within his coat, and sets the instrument to the string.

John finds a place along the structure to balance himself and then he listens.

Men rage and women weep. But Sherlock Holmes bleeds music.

Such music...

The rain pours down keeping time. It rattles off the roof of the tower above them. It rolls along the silver sheen feathers of the swan like Thames, as she glides along to the sea, put to sleep by the paen of Sherlock's sorrow.

On and on the music bleeds, pausing only for Sherlock to etch the notes to the immortal trouble in his mind across the structure in bold chalk scrapings.

Somewhere in the night , the bleeding stops. Music is his tears,he has only wept a handful of times in his life, and few if any of those enter memory. The weeping of the instrument is silent now.

So is he, as he stands, brooding,in the dying light of his electric torch,looking out over London once again from far too high above her.

Like an eagle to his perch, or an owl to his tree, Sherlock Holmes stands deep in thought, as the Thames swells beneath him, breathing as she has always breathed, her life elven thus eternal.

The silence is broken by John's shaky voice.

" That...was absolutely amazing."

Sherlock turns to him in shock, brows flying to the top of his face.

He has climbed higher now, and they are side by side.

"You followed me?"

"No, I was just bird watching. Really, Sherlock, what kind of obvious question is that?"

Sherlock's face grows hard.

"Why?"

"I was...worried. I...I found a page of the paper...It was a page from the article you burned, one that fell on the floor when you grabbed it all up."

Sherlock swallowed, and his shoulder's visibly sagged.

"None of it matters; you shouldn't have let it concern you."

"Well, actually it _does _matter. Last time it mattered to the point that Moriarty used it to get you to jump off a hospital; so of course it's going to concern me!"

Sherlock flinched, his teeth grit, "I did what I had to do...I'm sorry again, but I've explained it to you once...once is the only time I will..."

"Sherlock,...Look, it really is important. If not to you, then to me ,for certain. And if it didn't bother you at all, why are you nested up in the elbow of a bridge ,like Count Dracula and the pigeons, writing sad music? Which was beautiful by the way,..."

"Music helps me think when I'm ...distracted."

"You mean emotional."

"Call it what you want..."

John took the chalk, and wrote next to the title of the piece.

A.K.A. "He Bleeds".

"Call this what you want. This is the name I will know this piece by, and as beautiful as it was, I hope it's a long time before I have occasion to hear it again..."

Sherlock grinned, a smug, lopsided grin that maddeningly endeared him to John. Then he tucked his violin back into his coat, and slipped the bow up his sleeve, as though it were a magic wand.

"Hungry?" he asked John.

John smiled, knowing this meant he was going to let him close, even if they weren't going to talk about what happened today. John would be close, talking about something, and that would be comfort enough.

"Famished..One problem..."

"Oh?"

"How do we get down?"

"Put your arms around my shoulders, and I'll do the climbing down bit."

"What ...you mean like piggy back?"

"Didn't you hear me?"

"Well, I mean, won't I be heavy?"

"A hobbit like you? No, I don't think so."

"You actually know what a hobbit is?I'm floored."

"You understood the reference. I'm thrilled. Now if you're coming you'd better climb on my back; otherwise I'm leaving you to fend for yourself."

John laughed, and went and wrapped his arms around Sherlock.

"If you drop me!_"

"Don't worry the river is below us. You can swim ,can't you?"

"It's freezing down there!"

"So, if I drop you we order coffee with our meal."

The bickering about not being dropped went on until Sherlock had them both safely on the street again.

"Now ,see, I didn't drop you! You can shut up now!" Sherlock joked, dusting himself off.

John smiled at him ,fondly.

Oh why did people say the things they did about him? He was marvellous; simply put.

Still people were always talking.

John looked out of the corner of his eye, and saw a couple speeding away into the night.

The feet of gossip runs swiftly, especially when one of those feet is a professional photographer...


	3. Chapter3 Breaking Glass, Shattered Lives

**Chapter 3: Breaking Glass, Shattered Lives~**

It had been on the front page of some gossip magazine. A picture of last night Sherlock's climbing him down from the bridge. Some rubbish about a proposal and wedding plans...

"So you're finally marrying your live in then...even after all I told you, eh? When's the big day?" Sally had jeered.

He'd been at NSY, helping with looking at some files of medical information on the victim of their most recent case. Sherlock was out on the hunt, alone, God knows where.

John had been holding a wine glass. It had been filled with nothing but ginger ale, but it was the only glass Greg had on hand, and John had been utterly parched.

He can't keep it straight now, the shouts he heard coming from his own head, Greg trying to calm him down, Sally's mocking voice arguing with his unintelligible shouts, followed by the glass shattering in John's clenching fist.

All of it ending with Sherlock coming silent and wide-eyed into the room; their most recent murderer trailing in hand cuffs behind him.

He stared for a moment at the scene, at the puddle of ginger ale and blood staining Sally's magazine.

He pulls it out of the puddle, and lets the glass slide off of it ,like an avalanche in miniature, to read the hilariously untrue headlines, and see the picture of his descent from London Bridge.

He slaps the magazine down, and looks from one face to the next. Brows twisting with the ache in his mind.

It wasn't true and it didn't matter. Only the Work had ever mattered.

He handed the criminal over to Greg silently, none of his usual speech and dramatic flare. He reached out for John then, and pulled off his scarf, wrapping it tightly around his hand to staunch the bleeding from his palm.

Wrong. Only John really mattered now. He hadn't deserved to be entangled in such a wretched and at once beautiful life as his was; a life that was over now...

Shattered like the glass.

He passed like a ghost from the room.

Greg took the cuffed man by the elbow, and glared at Sally.

"You're cleaning that up." he barked,angry still that she could never let bad blood lie...


	4. Chpter4 Through the Broken Looking Glass

**Chapter 4: Through a Broken Looking Glass~**

Sherlock stands in the mirror in their office space in the flat, trying to place the identity of the man reflected on its face.

He doesn't know who he is any longer. Only who he used to be...

John's laptop is left open on his blog. So ,he's been reading it ,then. Trying to remember for himself. Or maybe trying to forget this new person that lives with him. The one that replaced the great detective that he knew.

This man in the mirror is someone Sherlock doesn't like. Someone who leaped to his death from the top of a hospital. Someone who went to Moriarty's hell for his sins.

Someone God must have showed great mercy, because he brought him back home. Back to the man he had loved enough to lose his soul for. To John Watson.

Sherlock smiles smugly at the thought of him, of the best of times, that seem to be over now.

Resume life? What does that mean? Pick up the pieces of a mirror image broken so finely, only he can see the cracks, as he studies his own reflection, trying to make deductive observations about himself?

As he stands there, studying the man in the glass, suddenly he hears a gunshot behind him, and the mirror shatters.

He throws himself on the floor, hands over his head, out of instinct. The instincts of a hunted man, of a persecuted and nearly destroyed soul.

As he lays there, on his aching stomach, before his eyes flash 3 years of torment. It started with forced suicide, and it ended in Serbia, being beaten with whips and steel rails, until his blood streamed down him like scarlet rain.

All of it because his captors believed he knew the imaginary computer code Moriarty came up with. All of it because they threatened to hurt his loved ones at home if he didn't give in to them.

All of it ultimately because he tricked them, giving them false information, that lead them right into the hands of Mycroft's people. Those that were left tormented him, tried to break him into betraying information that would lead them to his friends, especially, "The army doctor his constant companion."

He lays there, shivering, in broken glass...His broken reflection, still snowing in jagged pieces about him, as the mirror sheds itself from its frame, like a bird plucks its feathers when seasons change.

He lays there in the glass, feeling tiny, immaterial, like what remains of his ghost in the funeral pyre of his soul. Waiting for the days to come, when someone cleanses this house of his spirit; longing for a day when he no longer haunts himself. His own blood is on his hands; he took his own life , and is guilty for it...

He hears shouts on the street. All of this happens within 30 seconds tops, but he's no longer aware of time, he's only aware of the frailty of his humanity, his mind was once brilliant like all the Cosmos, but is unraveled now like the threads of Fate. He prays unconsciously for it all to end. He wants to end, because he hates himself. He is an invisible man, the echo of schizophrenia, the madness that haunts the shell that was once human. He is the insanity, and not the mind,not anymore...

"Oi,Jerry, how'd you miss a stork like that?"

"Only a warning shot, mate, don't want to get arrested!"

"'Ey what,bobs are on their way boys, lets scatter!"

The voices are gone, the glass echoes, the spirit remains. The exorcism is over, but the demon is still here, trembling on the floor , the troubled broken spirit not leaving because he has nowhere to go.

"OH MY GOD, ARE YOU OK?!" echoes an angelic voice into the mix of his waking nightmare.

It's John , of course. Saint John. For only a saint could live in peace with such a sinner. Only an angel could make a fugitive demon feel somewhat at home.

Glass creaks, knees bend.

"Sherlock?" whispers the much-loved voice, and a hand is pressed to his throat, to make sure the broken heart is still beating.

And then clarity comes back to the genius mind. It may be broken and insane, but it is still his own, and power and beauty is still there, for that is what it is.

John had been in the shower. He's wearing his bathrobe, and his hair is dripping wet still, and Sherlock smells hot water and soap.

"What happened?! Sherlock, for the love of God, mate, what the _hell _happened?"

Sherlock closed his eyes, cataloging information. The sound of the gunshot, the angle at which it shot. Small caliber bullet, not made to aim as far as it was shot, novice gunman, wouldn't know much about it. Haphazard shot fired at him through an open window. Three voices, probably a street gang.

"A gang of street thugs, shot through the window,aiming for me. Obvious amateurs, and idiotic, they couldn't have hit an elephant leg shackled to a ginormous bull's-eye, even standing from 3 meters. No worries, I'm fine."

"If you're fine, why are you laying in the floor, shivering like it's subzero in here, with your arms folded over your head?" John pleaded, lifting him up from around the waist, and wrapping an arm protectively around his chest. Sherlock is panting, and bows his head.

"I was caught off guard; was trying to...adjust my collar. It surprised me; I should have paid more attention to my surroundings. No reason to be alarmed ,John, it's fine."

John turned Sherlock around, and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, looking him in the eyes.

"You have PTSD, don't you?"

"What, no?"

"Yeah, you do. And don't try to argue with me. Three reasons why it won't work. A) I'm a doctor, I'm pretty good at deciphering symptoms. B) I have PTSD too, so I know what it's like. And C) You told me what they did to you when you were gone, remember? You told me...why...and..." he swallows, still heart-broken and eternally grateful.

"There isn't a human being alive that wouldn't have at least some of the _symptoms _of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, after all that. THAT ,and these blokes may be idiots, but they are still trying to kill you. That and all the press bullying you...no wonder. I'm just trying to help, mate. Just let me help..."

Sherlock swallowed, somewhat ashamed.

" Ok. If you insist, Doctor Watson."

John laughed, and hugged him tight.

Just then they both heard a very explicit sound, and John drew back, mortified.

"That wasn't me_I didn't!" he blushed a dark red.

"It was coming from your computer." Sherlock corrected him, with a sheepish smile, and pointed.

"I wasn't...I uhm, I don't..." John coughs, very embarrassed.

"No. No ,you were on your blog, earlier. Oh...so now it's obvious what all that was about a moment ago; wanted to get my attention, maybe?"

He stood very carefully up, and reached a hand for John, who stood up next to him, letting out a heavy breath, somewhat less embarrassed now after Sherlock had made his conclusion.

They both went to the computer, and looked at the screen.

"Courtesy of the Devon boys." said an instant message bubble.

The video bellow that was a pornographic cartoon. And the characters looked like the two of them.

"Uggh!" John growled, and covered his mouth.

Sherlock's face twisted in disgust, and then he switched the computer off.

"We'll wipe it clean, or have it replaced. The virus was attached to your computer via the website, and has most likely corrupted all your files, and internet accounts..."

John bowed his head, and Sherlock looked at him in concern.

"It's just a cartoon; why are you so upset?"

"After all you've done for your country in stopping Moriarty, and look how they bully you. It's so bloody wrong! I just..." John shakes his head, and can't talk anymore.

Sherlock smiles at him.

"Wrong!" he says ,patronizingly.

"Sorry?"

"Wrong. I did nothing for my country. I stopped Moriarty for you. Because I knew you'd never be safe, so long as the Network endured. And... I'm sorry that I've caused you so much trouble."

Sherlock turns away,no longer able to look John in the eyes. Afraid of looking sad in front of him, of being even remotely emotional, or vulnerable.

In front of any one else that would be understandable.

In front of the brother that you died for ,that mentality was out of the question.

John reached out, spun him around, and propelled himself into his arms.

The wind knocked from him, and still somewhat on edge from being shot at, Sherlock allowed himself to melt into someone else's arms for the first time, not even conscious that he did.

John noticed it though, and smiled.

"I wasn't done hugging you before. They broke our window, and our mirror, and totally rubbished my computer ,Sherlock. I'm putting you on the case, find out who they are and what they do, and get them arrested."

Sherlock laughed, "I've already done that, believe me or not. They gave me their names...Stupid."

They both erupted into nervous giggles again, and let go of one another.

"It looks like we're off to NSY, John! For the 5th time today!"

"Oi, wait a minute, I'm still in my shower robe, Sherlock!" John cried, storming into his bedroom, looking for at least some jeans.


	5. Chapter 5 Off the Page

**Chapter 5: Off The Page~**

His mother was a poet. Verses echo through John's mind, as they walk down the sidewalk. None of the cabs take Sherlock anywhere, anymore. It makes for a lot of legwork...

"_You won me with distraction, beauty unconscious, unchained spirit,_

_ Memory captured for a life in chaos, anchor for an eternity distant,_

_ Music is your name, sweet rapture, vision and promise,_

_ Bound in chains of ink, the page your prison,_

_ Destined for greatness, captured in shape notes,_

_ Beat on your ivory bars, rattle your viol string chains,_

_ No instrument tame you, nor orchestra claim you, nor composer name you,_

_ Sweet fractured distant, haunting recorded,_

_ Only borrowed, necessary loan, ethereal favor,..."_

Mrs. Watson had written that after she took John and Harry to see the symphony when they were little. John had always thought his mother was a little bit strange. Didn't understand the way she had seen the world.

Until he'd met Sherlock, and then ,eyes blind to observation, could finally see the world as it truly is, and as it really should be.

"Symphony" that is what his mother had called the little verse she had written on the back of the program that afternoon at the Barbican ,long ago.

But John thought maybe it was really about Sherlock. His mother couldn't have known that, of course. She had never met Sherlock before when she penned it down, and the one time she had met Sherlock she was now a tottery old lady living in a nursing home, and no longer remembered the little verse on the back of the program, nor had the wit to put the note with the face it belonged to.

But it came to John like a whispered epiphany, as they walked down the grey streets of London, one rainy afternoon at the entrance of December.

Sherlock. A minor note in an upbeat world. An orchestra of one violin, in a world of electric guitars. Music chained to the page in stanzas.

A mind too beautiful, too powerful, and far too honest for such a commercialized generation.

Generosity spurned. Wisdom not pardoned.

It came to John as obvious as deductions came to Sherlock.

He was absolutely amazing. Phenomenal as symphony. He didn't vie for an audience, even when he was silent, his very presence demanded one. Such a miraculous life should not go unwitnessed...

But like all the great creations at their invention, like Vincent Van Gogh, or Socrates...brilliance is always persecuted.

The world is allergic to celestial beauty, it seems.

And inside, John cried, because it should have been obvious. Whether he believed they existed or not, Sherlock was a hero. If not to the world, than definitely to one John Watson. He had been so alone, so painfully ordinary. And then in a shadow of a brilliant light , in the echo of inaudible music, in a Paradox of selflessness and insufferable, human and machine,he had totally altered John's life. Had given him a new life. One that was so much more than human. One that bordered on divine, and yet, at the same time, was Paradox again, and couldn't be more human in every moment.

Ended with a rooftop. Ended in blood, and sidewalks, and cutting words. A melodic life and a harsh tragic note that halted the song.

And now that persecution carried on beyond the grave. Beyond the silence, of the shattered music.

And John was asking the heavens ,'Why'? Why couldn't he just be allowed to live, and be himself? Normal was overrated. Normal was boring...

It was out of their hands. Persecution is so often not deserved. The world is a cruel place to be found in. Fame is brutal. And nothing ends as it seems it should...

And John walks beside him, because none of the cabs will take them anywhere. For the 5th time today, in sleet and snow ,and a bit of coming hail, they walk side by side to New Scotland Yard. With the 5th case they've solved.

And he realizes that life is its own excuse for living. That wiser men were right when they said that 'Beauty is its own excuse for being'. He couldn't remember who had said that now, but they were so right.

And so if Sherlock needed a reason for why John was still walking beside him, when he had every excuse to walk as far away from his as the eastern from the western wind, he'd have to say that Sherlock was reason enough to stay. That he loved Sherlock, if only because he was. That he needed no other excuse to be loyal to his friend, than the excuse of his friend's existence.

And the question was never asked. Because Sherlock had the benefit of brilliance ,and understood without having to voice his thoughts.

Acceptance.

Unadulterated, unaltered. Unconditional. Rain ,or hail, or snow, or not. Cab or shank's pony, John was here to stay. It might be a footsore life, but it was a journey worth the walking.

The secret was out of the bag, and the story was off the page. This was their life, and their love. Platonic, even ,one might say, holy. Brothers not boyfriends. Maybe not what other people expected or approved, but what did it matter what they thought or said? This was their life, behind closed doors or on open sidewalks, this was their life, and their road to walk. People might talk,but people do little else.

Today they silently agreed that the world would never come between them again.

People stopped, and stared, and swore, and took pictures as they passed by.

Sherlock reached out a protective arm, and wrapped it around John's shoulders, popping his collar to half conceal his face.

And they kept walking...


	6. Chapter 6 Invictus Weeps

**Chapter 6: Invictus Weeps~**

Sherlock tipped Greg off and was turning on his heel to go. John was laughing at something Greg was saying, some comment about 5 cases in one day, and the phenomenal streak of Providence he felt he was having. John was distracted long enough for Sally to make the greatest insult she ever had.

"Psst. Oi, Freak, come here!" she whispered, leaning over her desk.

"Hello, Sally. Whispering isn't like you; what do you want?"

Sally held up a small white pill.

"I don't want anything. I'm doing you a favor ,Freak."

"Ok, I'm listening. Make it quick though. John will result to fisticuffs if I don't feed him soon."

"Actually, this is about John, otherwise I wouldn't be saying anything."

"Spit it out, Sally, you can't mean well."

"You've solved it already, haven't you though? You're a genius, that's what you do, right?"

Sherlock studied the pill, and the lights went off in his brilliant mind, silver green eyes flashing like Aurora Borealis off the stream.

"Ah...Last time I did that it didn't help John Watson one iota. What makes you think it will now?"

"Because it _did _help John. Greg told me everything. You saved his life once by taking yourself out of the picture. You could do it again."

" I would never do that to John Watson..."

"It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. The tone in your voice; you've thought about it."

"Piss off, Donovan. Or ,actually, go to Anderson's house, his wife is in Florence with her job."

Sally fumed. "He isn't speaking to me anymore!"

"Because of what happened to me? It doesn't take a genius to solve that, now does it?"

"Sherlock, please. It's cyanide. It was difficult for me to get a hold of it. It was expensive. Will you just ...think about it?"

Sherlock took the pill from Sally, and looked at it with a laugh.

"This is basically attempted murder."

"I prefer to think of it as assisted suicide."

"Only because you assume I want to die."

"YOU DO WANT TO DIE!" Sally shouted, losing her temper, and her battle, all at once.

Greg and John looked up, stunned.

"You were dead,...And you should have stayed that way! Why didn't you just STAY dead?!"

Sherlock held the pill up to the light, "Sorry to disappoint you. And sorry again; how much did you spend on this 30, 40 Euros? It's a sugar pill, darling!" he spat, grinding it to powder between his fingers, and scattering it in one flick of his wrist, all over the desk.

Greg's mouth gaped, and Sherlock laughed,

"Oh, don't worry I won't bother pressing charges, if only because of the sheer idiocy of the crime, and that it would make for an extremely boring court case. I sincerely hope you pay her well enough though, it seems such a waste...40 Euros for a sugar pill..."

He turned on his heels, hands thrust in his pockets.

"Coming, John?"

There was no answer, and Sherlock turned.

John had already left.

Greg was actually fighting angry tears, and then shrugged sheepishly having no idea where John had gone.

"Of course he'd take it personally!" Sherlock hissed, annoyed, and stormed out on the street.

"JOHN! OI, JOHN! DON'T BE SENTIMENTAL NOW, IT'S GETTING COLD, AND I'M HUNGRY FOR ONCE!" he called into the coming night.

He went in circles trying to solve for John. Hoping the man wouldn't hurt himself being so emotional. Would never for the life of him be able to understand why things like sugar pills and smashed mirrors could upset John Watson.

Finding him was simple enough. He was in the back alley.

Sherlock hadn't seen this before, but recently, possibly this very afternoon, someone had painted in graffiti on NSY's back wall, a line from Invictus:

" I am the captain of my soul. I am the master of my fate."

Sherlock nodded to the words, somewhat vindicated by them. He was here and he was here to stay. The world would have to deal.

John leaned against these words on his knees.

"What's gotten into you? Marking up the walls like that? I thought they'd given you an ASBO already!" Sherlock laughed.

John laughed, a hard ,wet laugh. Sherlock drew near him and knelt beside him. It didn't take a genius to solve, now did it?

John was weeping, silently against the wall. So hard in fact that he was leaving a little stream of tears under himself.

Invictus may be the master of his fate, but words still bite like thorns. And a gift of poison still hurts, even if you're Hercules. Even the dauntless heroes weep sometimes...

Sherlock drew close to him, and wrapped his arms around his chest, laying his face in his hair.

"It's alright ,really. I would never have taken it..."

"But you still got it, huh? It was still given to you...it's just so bloody wrong." John gasped, swallowing his tears.

"It is wrong...But then they're always wrong...What they do ,and say, and think. They have brains and they don't use them; never open their thought processes to a broader scheme of things! That's the only tragedy here!..."

John laughed, and turned to look at him.

Sherlock smiled.

"Don't let it get to you..."he muttered, thumbing a tear off John's chin.

John shrugged, trying not to cry anymore. Sherlock was right. They were all stupid, and it was their loss.

It still mattered to John though. It still hurt.

Sherlock knew that. He just didn't want John to hurt. He didn't deserve to.

And Sherlock deserved to live. But we don't always get what we deserve. In the case of Sally Donovan, that was probably a fortunate thing...

"Come on, it's dark and cold, and I'm famished! Let's go find somewhere to eat!" Sherlock said, pulling John to his feet.

John leaned against him, and bowed his head.

He smiled ,in the end.

Sherlock was here to stay. The rest of the world would just have to learn to deal with that...


	7. Chapter 7 Wine, Women, and Wrong

**Chapter 7: Wine, Women, and Wrong~**

Somewhere to eat was a mistake.

It had looked like a nice diner. Really it had. It was tucked away, and no one would know it. The only people who might come here were people too old to remember Sherlock Holmes, or people on love-sick and silly dates, that wouldn't be looking up from each other to see them.

But the waitress would.

She was friendly. That was the first thing that told Sherlock something was very wrong.

"Here I'll get you a seat close to the computers! We rent out iPad's to our valued customers, because a lot of them come here to do their office work, as well as eat, yeah? You can't miss the forum they've got going."

"Forum? What kind of forum?" John had asked, a tiny bit disturbed by her friendliness himself.

"We're not interested. We just want something to eat ,please." Sherlock hissed, irritated at once.

"Yes, of course, Mr. Holmes. Here have a seat! Here,this is a 1980 burgundy from Paris. Might seem cheap, but I personally like it." she sat them next to the computers anyway, and set a bottle of wine on the counter between them.

"What forum? That's wierd, don't you think, Sherlock?"

Sherlock ,being that he notices everything ,couldn't help but notice the forum.

It was a discussion about him. About his motives. About how he survived such a suicide, but more importantly why it was allowed to happen, and why the government didn't do something about it. It was challenging Mycroft's authority too, which meant that his elder brother was due to show up any minute, and scold him for being so openly alive.

Well he had tried to keep a low profile. God knows he tried.

"Wait, how did she know your name? What?"

That's when John saw the forum too. It was being lit up with a heated debate of ways to petition the Parliament to insist on Sherlock's arrest, incarceration, exile, execution.

Execution.

This was the third time today somebody insisted Sherlock be taken out of the world again. Taken after just so recently coming back.

Sherlock saw the look on his face.

"Never mind." he said, and that was all he said.

"You're meal is on the house; I have a few gentlemen here that are dying to ask you some questions!" the waitress called.

" Keep your eyes on the door, John, if they are who I think they are they might try to attack me."

"What?"

"Just keep walking."

They were outside in the alley, when a man's voice said softly.

"Did you think you could just come back, and your gallant exploits would make it all ok?"

Sherlock sighed, and drew up straight and tall.

" It would be a good time for you to run." he whispered.

"What the hell, Sherlock?!"

They are going to kill me, John... They are going to kill me and not touch a hair of your head. I don't think it, I know it, they promised to do it a long time ago. You don't deserve to have to watch this. Please...Please just go. I'm sorry..."

"SHERLOCK?!" John shouted.

And then, somebody swept his legs out from under him, tied him up.

"Too late ,he has to watch." said a woman's voice.

It was Anthea.

"You. But...why?" John gasped, confused.

Anthea bowed her head.

"You've jeopardized national security too many times to be allowed to live, Sherlock. You've put your own brother...your best friend... both at risk. The police officer was right. You should have stayed dead."

Sherlock gave Anthea a sad look, like he was being betrayed. Even though he and Anthea hadn't really got along all that well, she was still his brother's PA, and so in essence, he was being betrayed. What else was new?

"You're MI6 agents? DOES YOUR BOSS KNOW ABOUT THIS?" John shouted.

"Shhh...No. No ,of course he doesn't. We're the agents in charge of Mr. Holmes' personal security. We were also given authority ,at his request, over Sherlock's surveillance.

We've sat back and watched you, watched what you did with Moriarty's network, and watched how you've lived since you've been back...well...living...for too long.

We've watched you in growing anxiety for too long.

And now for the love of Mycroft Holmes, we will do what we should have done when you were in Serbia. Misinform him about you. Let you die. It would have been cleaner to let someone else kill you...It doesn't seem fair to John , all of this... We are going to kill you, and frame John for your murder. Mycroft will believe us, before he believes the Doctor. Mycroft will be safe at last. Safe from the jeopardy you put him in. Safe from worrying about you constantly, because you will finally be in the only place you are truly safe, and the only place that you can't get into any trouble. Your grave. Oh, he'll be sad, certainly. In fact he told me once, that the loss of you...would break his heart...

But it's safer to break his heart, than for you to lead him to his 'gallows'. You will destroy him, Sherlock. You destroy everyone. We won't let you destroy the country we've worked so hard to protect though...even if it has to come to this..."

Sherlock looks at his feet.

" I suppose it doesn't matter that I'm just a bit disappointed, Charlotte..."

"It's Anthea, to you."

"Oh no, it's always been Charlotte. Mycroft's little Sharly. His muse...I think...maybe ...he might have..."Sherlock laughed, hotly.

"Caring IS a disadvantage. He was right."

Then Sherlock turned to John, and his face had fallen.

"But I'm the most disappointed in myself...I came back to life, because I felt like I owed that to you. After you prayed for a miracle. Now maybe it would have been better if no miracle came..."

"No. No, don't say that. This is better...even this..." John gasped, cut too deep to bleed out tears now.

"We've confiscated John Watson's pistol." Anthea said, raising it. She smiled, sadly.

"Get on your knees."

Sherlock dropped to one knee ,like he was proposing.

"You're going to shoot me with it. You're going to shoot me right between my eyes. You're going to paint John Watson with my blood. I am the scapegoat. He goes to prison for the rest of his life, and he's safe. Mycroft loses his greatest security breach, and so he's safe. And I'm dead and 6 ft under, so I'm safe...It's all very clever, but what's in it for you?"

"Mycroft won't have you anymore, and so his one track affection can finally be transferred to me."

Sherlock smiled. A broad smile, the kind that made him look pleasant and happy, like he was never really able to be...John can't take his eyes off him. This is the last time he will ever see his eyes still filled with life, and he wants to make it count.

Anthea presses the cool metal barrel to Sherlock's head.

"Close your eyes."

"I think I'd rather keep them open."

"I don't want you looking at me."

"I'm sorry, but these are my last few minutes, and I still have a choice. If I have to die, I want to die eyes wide open, so I can see what the world looks like painted in my blood."

"I wish you weren't so clever ,Sherlock. And willful."

"Oh? Well, I wish that I could just exist, but we don't always get what we wish for..."

"Sorry, but you know this is better."

"It doesn't make it fair though, does it?"

"No , I'm afraid it doesn't..."

"If you were in my place, would you be proud?"

"I don't know. You're dying for your brothers, and for your country. Does that make you proud?"

"I'm broken and empty. I don't feel anything. That's why I was asking you..."

"I'm about to end your pain...or lack thereof. It seems like it would be pretty miserable to be you...And now you won't be anymore..."

"It was... except for one thing..."

"Oh? What was that?"

"I was probably the most obnoxious human being that ever lived. But then there was John Watson. He shared his life with me. For a short while it was so blissfully ordinary, and almost...peaceful. For a handful of days I was...human. I owe him for that. I don't have any regrets. Just promise me he will be treated fairly, and make sure that they don't kill him. No one deserves to die for something they actually did not do, him least of all..."

The pistol cocked, and Anthea chewed her lip.

"Go on, Charlotte. Set us free..."Sherlock said sadly, laughing quietly.

"Oh...how right I was!" Mycroft's voice suddenly said into the night.

John's heart almost exploded, so grateful he was here.

"So right I was...and so wrong your logic is!" he gasped, and strode into the middle of them all.

To John's absolute horror, there are silver tears in the eyes of the Ice Man.

"Caring is a disadvantage, and I am at so grave a loss!..." he shakes his head, and looks at Sherlock.

But Sherlock closes his eyes, because he just can't look at Mycroft. He doesn't want him to know how far he has fallen.

"Because I have cared..so very much, despite myself, I CARE! AND LOOK WHERE THAT HAS LEAD ME!"

"I only did my duty ,sir..."Anthea protested.

"When did duty become more important than innocent lives? And when did my brother's soul become the penance we pay for London's sin?" he gasped, and strode into the center of them.

"You were ordered to keep my brother safe! To deliver him from their pens, and their swords, and their devices. To keep him invisible, so that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not hear! His life was entrusted to you, because you loved your country, and because the very soul of this country is at his mercy! ..."Mycroft looked at his brother ,and shook his head.

"It was the truth. The loss of him will break my heart. I think it already has been broken... Yes, I am at a grave loss, one that can never be redeemed in profit, nor in servitude to my country. Justice eludes me. Justice is driven to his knees."

He stretches a shaking hand to his brother, who ducks his head. He won't look at him. He can't...

John gasps audibly, and grits his teeth.

"And you!" Mycroft cries, and turns to look at him, mortified. And John does look, because he can't help himself. He can't believe what he is seeing, the distress on Mycroft's face...

"You...the soldier. The doctor...The poster child for what an Englishman ought to be...For what a human ought to be. The man who gave my brother humanity...The man he loved enough to storm the gates of Hell for...What have you ever done to merit this? What manner of law is this? Far from justice, greatly skewed. I am utterly perplexed...

No, we cannot continue in a world like this. No, we must look for a change. It won't do. None of you will do. You are all relieved from duty tonight. You are all charged with treason..."

He puts in a call to his people, and his face takes on a coldness it never had before. Arctic now, his winter is comatose.

"From this day forward, I will trust no one, not even myself...My better judgement has failed me. I must search for a better means to cross-examine all methods...To make this country fit to defend from Anarchy..."

Black cars began to swarm the alley ways. Silently other agents got out, and sadly they came and put Anthea and those with her in handcuffs.

"Sir..." Anthea gasped.

"Goodbye, Charlotte." he whispered.

Dreamlike..., she was gone. They were all gone...

Sherlock was still on his knees.

Mycroft bent over John and untied him. Breathing ragged, trying to gather his bearings, inward compass smashed on the stones of nightmare reality.

"I will kindly ask you to stand now, brother mine." Mycroft muttered softly to Sherlock.

Who slowly stood up, and looked off into the night, eyes filled with starlight of the waking sky above him, wind tossing his scarf about like a water woven into fabric, a wave of the lonely sea.

Grave he was, and bowed his head. Fractions of the man he was, broken along with Mycroft's heart. Fallen.

And it was all because he had cared. Disadvantage, yes. But a price he had been willing to pay...


End file.
